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Anxiety recovery – when will I feel better?

Perhaps your most common question during your recovery is: "When will I finally feel better, when will I start to live normally, how long do I have to wait?"

Even if you changed your perspective about things and you have a new approach to your condition, you should know that your symptoms will be coming back to you (for a certain period of time). You have to be ready to accept this fact. Your nerves will continue to launch overdoses of adrenaline even if you accepted new perspective on things.

There is something we all have in common, and that is when, let's say, you talk to a psychiatrist or psychologist or any other specialist about your condition and you feel much better, you may even think that your suffering is over and that you are cured. Don't fall for this trap, because the next day you will learn that changes were not permanent. I repeat - there is no shortcut to curing.

Understanding the nature of your condition and your true wish for absolute acceptance and letting time do its job will cure you, be sure about it. Your goal should be calm and staidly acceptance of all what is happening to you without your retrospection of how long you have been ill or how much time you need to get well.

I understand how you feel in the beginning when you decide to accept your condition. Even if you decided to mentally accept everything that is happening to you and if you have a new perspective on this whole thing, it is very likely that you will find it hard to calmly accept everything that is happening, and all the negative thoughts that you have about your condition. Don't feel disappointed or discouraged, not for a minute. Never give up! In the beginning it is enough to focus your thoughts on accepting your symptoms and sensations. In time it will get easier to accept everything.

It also has to be mentioned that even if in the beginning you don't want to be frightened, you will still experience certain fears. In other words, you will feel that second fear which is important to overcome panic attacks. Don't be discouraged if you still add your second fear on top of the first one. Only if you understand the nature of your condition and the way you have to handle it, you are on a good way to curing! So, this way you did the first step to curing and there is no going back to your previous state. In the beginning it is enough only to WISH not to be frightened again.

Once you DECIDE to accept all your strange sensations (even if you are still frightened) in time you will lose that fear and you will be less and less frightened. That is because your absolute acceptance is diminishing tension and therefore slowly lowering the intensity of your symptoms. This way hope is slowly coming back to you and your self-reliance is becoming stronger. Fear is getting smaller and smaller.

I said it many times and I will say it again because it is very important - you have to be occupied with something during your recovery. You shouldn't just start with any activity, something that will distract you from yourself - don't do this. You have to find something that you really enjoy doing, something that really interests you. Occupation is important because it focuses your mind to your surroundings, you are not occupied only with yourself and your condition, and you are slowly starting to focus on other, nicer things. While you are occupied with some activity your symptoms will still be coming back, however it will be easier for you to accept them and deal with them, because your focus will be elsewhere, or maybe you will forget about your symptoms altogether - that's even better!

With good nutrition, moderate physical activity and your daily work on accepting symptoms it is possible for a person to completely recover in 2 or 3 months. Bear in mind that this is not absolute specification. Some people will need more time, some less. It doesn't matter how much time you need, what is important is the fact that you will come out of this as a winner.

As you will become less and less frightened and your self-reliance will grow, you will slowly begin to lose interest in your symptoms. There will be moments when you will forget about yourself and your condition. Later these moments will grow into hours and finally you will be able not to think about your anxiety for longer and longer periods of time. You will become more interested in your surroundings and things that you are interested in. At this point you can say that you are O.K. and that you are on the right way to become even better.